NFL Betting Strategy

NFL Betting Strategies

All of the more accurate and successful sports bettors have always come up with ways to increase their chances of winning, or even methods to lower the amount of money lost during their bets. We all look for the magical method of always winning every single bet, but as this is a great ideal, it is not reality. This is why there are certain strategies that a sports bettor could use in order to become much better at betting on the NFL match-ups, and possibly making some good money in the process. There are three great strategies that are easy to use, including Handicapping, Reverse Handicapping, and Middling. These strategies could work, but the bettor needs to be disciplined and patient.

Handicapping

The term handicapping came about when sports bettors started to realize that they could get a slight advantage over the sportsbooks or even the odds, by looking at and being able to analyze the different aspects that can affect a NFL game.

Use the Public Opinion

When looking at the point spread on any online sportsbook, as a bettor you must understand that the spread is based on public perception. What the oddsmakers do is place a certain point spread value with the hopes that they will have bettors on each side of the bet, but it hardly works out in this manner. There are usually a lot of bettors placing their wagers on just one side of the spread, with a few on the other side. Bettors can tell when this occurs by comparing the spread at the beginning of the week and as the game day gets closer. This can be used by the bettors to either place a smarter wager or when they place future bets.

Statistics

This may already be a concept that has been beaten into you many times, but that just emphasizes just how important they are. Bettors should be able to learn and understand what the different statistics mean. Some important factors to consider when using statistics to handicap a matchup are the timeframe and accuracy. A bettor should never use stats that were collected years before, as the information is out of date, the team and players are completely different, and this could adversely affect your bets. Always try to use the most up to date information, as players and teams, even coaches, can affect the outcome of a match.

Turnovers

This is a good factor to consider when handicapping. There will always be teams that are more prone to high numbers of turnovers. This may be because their defense isn’t as good, or the quarterback is inexperienced; it could even be because the runners or receivers have butter-fingers and have a history of turning the ball over. The sports bettor should find these teams with high incidents of turnovers, as this could be a game changer.

Weather

One of the most underappreciated and overlooked factor when handicapping would have to be the weather. The weather can say and forecast so much about how a certain team or even player will perform during a match. There are teams that are used to warm weather, so when they play in cold weather, they may not play as well since the ball and gameplay will have changed. This can be said for any kind of weather, if it’s windy or sunny or snowing. Reading up on the weather forecasts and how a team could perform during that particular weather is paramount.

Reverse Handicapping

Sportsbooks have become very popular, as well as extremely accurate when they start predicting the odds. The reason behind this is that they are in it to win money, so they have to look at a match from every angle possible in order to make a fair assumption of what the odds should be. In other words, they have done most of the handicapping and research for the sports bettor. This is where the bettor has to start asking questions, starting from the odds.

Why

Asking why a certain NFL betting line is the way it is, is an important step to understanding what the spotsbooks and oddsmakers look at in order to determine those particular odds.

This whole concept of reverse handicapping is used to decipher what, why, and how the sportsbooks predictions work; since the sportsbooks are extremely accurate when posting certain odds. However, bettors need to remember that they are in it to make money, so the odds could also be somewhat skewed in their favor.

Middling

Middling is a common concept among professional sports bettors. This method is when a bettor uses the odds of two different sportsbooks, in order to arrive at a middle wager. In other words, they will look at the point spread of one sportsbook, which may be in favor of the Favorite, while another sportsbook could show a point spread that favors the Underdog. By placing a wager on both sportsbooks, in the respective manner, they have increased their chances of winning, as well as diminished the amount of money they could lose.

At the BetOnline sportsbook we can see a higher point spread of +7, while at TopBet we can see a lower -6.5 point spread. What a bettor would do in this case would be to bet on the Favorite at one sportsbook and the Underdog at the other, but which sportsbook should they use for either of them? Simply taking into account that the Favorite has to score more points that what is show is a good indicator. Using the above information the sports bettor would:

Sportsbook

Team Wagered On

Odds

BetOnline

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

+7

TopBet

Dallas Cowboys

-6.5

This way the bettor has a much better chance of getting a winning bet, or at least minimizing their losses. This way the Underdogs, the Buccaneers have a chance of keeping the score difference at 7 or below, while the Cowboys can score more than 6.5 points; in other words, if the score difference is of 7 points, then one bet will win, while the other bet will tie. If the final score difference is not of 7 points, then the bettor would essentially be only losing $10, or breaking even.

Middling is a safe way of placing spread wagers, but as the risk is lower, the returns may not be as high, but the longer a bettor applies this strategy, the more money they will end up winning in the long run.